The Milwaukee Bucks open the home portion of their 44th NBA season on Tuesday, Dec. 27 at 7:30 p.m. against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team announced today in conjunction with the release of the 2011-12 NBA regular season schedule.

The Bucks start the season on the road at Charlotte on Monday, Dec. 26, part of a road-heavy start to the season that features 12 of the first 18 games away from the Bradley Center.

Features of the Bucks 2011-12 regular season schedule include:

Two visits from the Eastern Conference Champion Miami Heat (Feb. 1, Feb. 13), A Saturday night home match-up against Central Division Champion Chicago Bulls (Feb. 4), as well as a second visit from the Bulls on Mar. 7.

The lone visit of the season from the Los Angeles Lakers (Jan. 28), which tips off a three-game home stand including matchups with Detroit (Jan. 30) and Miami (Feb. 1).

One set of back-to-back-to-back games that sees the Bucks sandwich a road trip to Charlotte (March 23) between home contests against Boston (March 22) and Indiana (March 24).

The season's longest homestand is five games: against Cleveland (April 4), Charlotte (April 6), Portland (April 7), Oklahoma City (April 9) and New York (April 11).

Five national TV games, an April 13 matchup at Detroit slated for ESPN. The remaining four national games (Jan. 7 at the L.A. Clippers, Mar.3 at Orlando, March 22 vs. Boston and April 2 at Washington) will air on NBATV.

The 2011-12 schedule features just two road trips of three games or more. Milwaukee rings in the New Year with a five-game trip that begins in Denver on January 2 and continues to Utah (Jan. 3), Sacramento (Jan. 5), the Los Angeles Clippers (Jan. 7) and Phoenix (Jan. 8). The three-game trek features a rare Leap Day matchup at Boston (Feb. 29), along with stops in Atlanta (March 2) and Orlando (March 3).

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About Doug Russell

Doug Russell has been covering Milwaukee and Wisconsin sports for over 20 years on radio, television, magazines, and now at OnMilwaukee.com.

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